Will Turks vote until Erdogan wins?

President seeks more power through parliamentary majority in second general election this year.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a republic day ceremony at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Ankara on October 29, 2015, three days ahead of a general election. Umit Bektas / ReutersShow less

ISTANBUL // Not long ago, it seemed like you could not open a refrigerator in Turkey without finding a loud, hyperventilating politician inside.

Over the space of 14 long months, Turkey’s citizens have endured three different election campaigns, each accompanied by innumerable mass rallies, stump speeches and increasingly aggressive, ear-splitting rhetoric.

In local elections last March, they handed the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) a vote of confidence despite a massive corruption scandal involving some of the party’s top leaders. A few months later they elected the AKP’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan president by a comfortable margin. Then, in a parliamentary vote this June, they pulled the carpet from under Mr Erdogan’s feet, forcing the AKP to look for a junior coalition partner for the first time in more than 12 years.

The run-up to Sunday’s early election, called after the failure of coalition talks, has been much more subdued.

First, there has been little room for boisterous rallies in a country reeling from the deadliest terror attack in its history, the ISIL bombing that killed 102 people in Ankara on October 10, as well as renewed war in the Kurdish south-east. Second, the parties and the people running for parliament have little to say that has not been said earlier. Turkish voters know the actors, the game, and the score.

Yet the stakes are higher than ever. And none of the outcomes appear optimal for Turkey’s stability.

Assuming the AKP wrests back the ruling majority it lost four months ago, Mr Erdogan, its de facto leader, will likely make yet another, inevitably polarising bid for a constitution that will give him sweeping new powers.

For Turks, and for foreign investors, this makes the prospect of a strong AKP government fraught with risk.

The AKP of today brooks little dissent, either within or without, favouring yes men over capable technocrats, shutting up or shutting down critical media outlets, and imposing its will on independent state institutions, including the central bank and the judiciary. Anchored to the ambitions of a leader who has lately become more polarising than he is popular, it risks neglecting key structural reforms, widening the crackdown against opponents, and leaving the country more divided than ever.

An outright win for the AKP seems unlikely, however. The renewed fighting in the south-east, in which critics see an attempt by the ruling party to shore up the nationalist vote, has not set off a political earthquake. Neither has the Ankara terror attack. Opinion polls have barely budged since the June elections. The most recent of these gave Mr Erdogan’s party 41.7 per cent of the vote, as compared to the 40.7 per cent it received in June.

Another hung parliament, and another stab at a power-sharing agreement between the AKP and one of its main rivals, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), appears to be in the offing.

Gluing together a viable coalition would be no easy task. Politicians in Ankara find it hard enough to shake hands these days, much less agree on a common agenda. In this campaign alone, the AKP has accused its opponents of being in league with foreign powers, Kurdish insurgents and coup plotters. Not to be outdone, the opposition has accused the ruling party of leaving the country on the verge of a civil war and failing to stop, if not instigating, the Ankara bombing. When it comes to issues such as education, foreign policy, the Kurdish conflict and Mr Erdogan’s presidential prerogatives, the gap between the main parties appears too wide to bridge.

If there is anything harder to ponder than a coalition agreement, however, it is the prospect of yet another election.

The failure to find consensus following June’s vote has already raised concerns about the country’s stability to levels not seen since the early 2000s.

Mr Erdogan knows that any power-sharing agreement will spell the end of his ability to micromanage the government, if not his own party. Having done his share to scuttle coalition talks earlier this summer, he may decide to roll the dice once again. The cost would be Turkey’s to bear.